Free To Try Men's Souls - George Washington 1 by William R. Forstchen, Newt Gingrich, Albert S. Hanser Page B

along the banks of the Passaic River, was packed to overflowing. It was shrouded in mist and the smoke from hundreds of sputtering, hissing campfires. Every house in the village had been requisitioned for the sick, staff, or officers; the citizens who had cheered them all so loudly in the summer, had withdrawn in silence, hiding their livestock and food in the nearby marshlands, demanding payment for dry firewood, howling with rage when desperate men told them to go to hell and took the wood anyhow. He hated this place, hated all of New Jersey for that matter, which, now that the army was in retreat, had, overnight, gone Tory. Even now he could imagine the citizens of this village pulling the Union Jacks out of hiding places in the attic, eager to hang them out their windows when this forlorn army decamped at dawn and continued its retreat toward Philadelphia. By this time tomorrow the pursuing British and Hessians will have marched in . . . with shining guineas and German coins in their pockets.
    It was rumored that the British general Howe was preparing a proclamation for the citizens of New Jersey: If they would step forward and sign an oath of renewed allegiance to King George, all would be forgiven and hard currency paid for goods acquired and to any who would take up arms to suppress the traitorous rebels. It was a rumorhe knew was most likely true. By tomorrow night the “citizens” of this town would be lining up to sign it, and to be paid for doing so.
    The American army, or what was left of it, was encamped on the low hills above the town, if the site could be called a camp or the men an army anymore. When they abandoned Fort Lee six days back, the army had been forced to leave behind most of its artillery and rations, hundreds of wagons, even its tents. So fast was the retreat that even the food on the hoof, cattle and swine, had been abandoned as well. Now they starved, stood around smoldering fires, sodden, and tomorrow they would most likely freeze. Tomorrow, there might not be an American army at all. The Revolution would have frozen to death.
    One hell of a cause I belong to, he thought. Damn, why does it always seem to rain on armies in retreat?
    Not even sure where I am going.
    Looking, but for what? For the first powerful sentence that everyone needs and that I can’t write.
    He was tempted to turn back from this fool’s venture, go inside the tent, and get drunk. No, not now! He pushed against the wind, the rain, and the biting cold.
    “This is the time of crisis,” he had written, then a few more lines. He had taken a drink, and froze, not just from the cold but from the lack of inspiration, not knowing what he was to write next. “The time of crisis is at hand,” and then another drink. “This time of crisis will try us . . .”
    Oh, the hell with it!
    Twilight. The leaden overcast was disappearing into blackness. The choking smoke from campfires made of green wood, mixed with the mist rising from the river and fetid marshlands on the far side of the Passaic, made all seem like something out of Dante, a dark, foreboding Hades for the condemned souls of the Revolution he had helped to inspire.
    He could easily turn to his right at this moment and head downthe few hundred yards to the house where Nathanael Greene had set up his headquarters. He knew he’d be welcomed, honored, given a place by a fire, perhaps even some food, and always something to drink. Though Greene was a Quaker and held against liquor, he did not deny it to his staff, and as was typical of officers, he always seemed to have enough.
    The thought was tempting, but then Greene would come and sit by his side, smile in his friendly fashion and give him “that look.” The look so many gave him. That he was a conjurer, a minister of the soul of this Revolution, and could magically spin out of air the words that would somehow dispel the gloom, the cold, the mist and rain, the hunger. His words would warm, revive, and renew the